Employers could receive tax rebates if they invest in health and insurance products that help reduce absenteeism, under recommendations made in the Keep Britain Working review, chaired by Sir Charlie Mayfield.
The report says there is a “strong case” for offering financial support to employers that embrace “good practice” when it comes to supporting employee health and wellbeing. This could include tax relief and rebates for employers certified as ‘adopters’ of workplace health provision.
The report also suggested national insurance adjustments, which might include rebates (or surcharges) reflecting how effective employers were at reducing the number of employees leaving work and going onto welfare. The report also proposed employers could qualify for sick pay rebates if they are utilising return to work and phased return plans.
These financial incentives are unlikely to be offered in the first ‘vanguard’ phase, but may be used as this is rolled out nationwide, with the view of encouraging more employers to sign up and adopt better workplace health provisions.
Mayfield also addressed the potential cost barriers, particularly for smaller employers, when it comes to offering preventative health support for employees, alongside access to early intervention, and faster rehabilitation and treatment in the event of ill health.
The report suggests that workplace health provision will primarily be funded by employers, but there needs to be “a flexible, market-led solution”. The review adds: “strategic support will be needed to ensure SMEs and the self-employed can access provision fairly. For this to be feasible the model must be affordable and scalable”.
It adds: “Many employers, particularly SMEs struggle with capital, time and knowledge needed to invest in workplace health. Costs are frequently higher for smaller employers, arising from the relatively larger administrative burden to providers, reduced risk pooling opportunity, and limited negotiating power.”
In order to address this, the review proposes that “pooling mechanisms” should be explored during the vanguard phase, to reduce costs and create economies of scale for SMEs. It adds pooled funding or risk pooling could make “high quality WHP services more affordable, especially for smaller employers — similar to auto-enrolment in pensions”.
The report envisages that workplace health provision will be offer by building on “existing ecosystems”, with employers working in partnership with occupational health, vocational rehabilitation teams, income protection and private insurers, as well as through NHS work initiatives.
In his introduction to the final stage of this review, Mayfield says he wants employers to play a key role, but highlights the important role Government must play in kickstarting this process.
“Government is critical to resetting the system. There is no viable scenario where more public spending alone can solve this. Instead government must enable and incentives employers and employees to act.”
He says this “begins better data”, and remains confident that evidence from the initial vanguard stage will demonstrate the benefits to employers of investing in health and wellbeing.
But he adds: “Robust evidence will show that shared responsibility delivers the best outcomes – keeping people in work, improving health, increasing inclusion and saving the state billions. With that evidence, government must deploy a full range of targeted incentives – from procurement, rebates and the tax system, through to reforms to welfare and dispute resolution – to drive and sustain change.”
The report has been welcomed by the Government, which confirmed it will push ahead with the initial vanguard stage. However it has not commented on whether it will look at tax rebates in future on a range of workplace healthcare policies.
